The Pseudo-Hippocratic Tract ΠΕΡΙ 'ΕΒΔΟΜAΔΩΝ, Ch. 1-11 and Greek Philosophy (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 541 wisdom, the culmination of the art is to be found in the "trilogy" of The Sophist, The Statesman, and The Philosopher. The third member of this projected trilogy was never written, for reasons which are excellent material for speculation without knowledge. A sophist can exploit dialectic world-without-end. A statesman must renounce his attempt to endure the "sunlight" and return to the Cave in the hope that he may possibly enlighten his fellowmen dwelling in the realm of shadows. A philosopher, however , must face the sunlight until it reveals to him the wisdom of the Ultimate Idea. But if he finds it, he is in a difficult dialectical position. Gundert~ who explores this difficulty with admirable skill, thinks that possibly Plato's awareness of this predicament may have dissuaded him from writing The Philosopher. Gundert's analysis of this culminating difficulty should be presented in his own concluding words: An entscheidenden Stellen, wit eben beim Menschen, wird das Problem transparent, sei es in der Ironie, scies in Ausblicken wit dem Mythos. Vor allem aber zeigt sich, dass das hier gesuchte letzte Eidos aueh dihKretisch nicht bestimmbar ist ohne Riickgang auf h6here Hypotheseis. Zunh'chst muss fiir den Sophisten, der andere Gattungen ausweicht, das eine, umfassende Wesen, fiir den Staatsmann, dernur im Umriss gefunde wurde, die Spit~ in der I-Iierarehie der Mitwirkenden gefunden werden. Dann zeigt sich fir den Sophisten, dass sein Wesen nur bestimmbar ist, werm es in der MSglichkeit des Pseudos, dieses im Sein des Niehtseienden begriindet wird; dieses aber w~e, ebenso wit das umfassende iiberlegene Wissen des Staatsmanns, im Sein- und Principienwissen der Dialektik zu bcgriinden, das nicht mehr enfaltet wird. Unausgesprochen transzendiert so das letzte Eidos den Oft siner Eingrenzung in der Richtung auf das unbefragte oberste Genos, das Wissen selbst: das einemal als fundamentale Verfiilschung des universalen und f'fihrenden Wissens, das andermal Ms seine Riickwendung in die Welt. In dieser Weise wahrt auch das dialektisch ausgereift~ Spiel des Dialogs jene urspriingliche Polaritlt des Niveaus: des offenen, das dem Oespriichspartner und Leser schon zug~nglich ist, und des verborgenen, aus dem heraus und zu dem lain er gefiihrt wixd. (pp. 158-159) HERBERT W. SCHNEIDER Claremont, Cali/ornia The Pseudo-Hippocratic Tract IIEPI 'EBAOMAAf~N, Ch. 1-11 and Greek Philosophy . By J. Mansfield (Assen: van Gorcum & Co., 1971. Distributed in the USA by Humanities Press, New York. pp. 271. $13) This is a volume of great value for historians of philosophy who have puzzled over the tangled relation between Greek medicine, pre-Socratic philosophy, Platonic and Aristotelian thought, and the strange amalgam of medical, astrological/astronomical, and philosophic theory that emerged in the writings of Posidonius. The Pseudo-Hippocratic Tract is based upon careful consideration of interpolation and the essential vocabulary within its purported Hippocratic sections, as well as how given words and phrases Ink with Aristotelian treatises. Here the non-specialist, unversed in the methodology of textual criticism (well illustrated in the writings of P. Maas) as well as the complexities of pre-Socratic fragments and the vexed problems of Greek medicine/ philosophy in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C., will be utterly lost. Mansfield rightly delineates what we can and cannot trust in the seemingly corrupt text before us. Corruption leads Mansfield into less than plausible assumptions. Beginning with a mention of Galen's Glossary as a key to understanding the quasi-Hippocratic work, On Sevens, Mansfield notes the Glossary may have been dependent on earlier works of the same kind (p. 9), namely lists of difficult words and obscure treatises on medicine and philosophy (or the two juxtaposed, as was common in writings from the Ptolemaic Museum). This is a valid possibility contradicted by the manner in which classical authors---doctors, architects, philosophers, rhetoricians, gymnastic theorists, and the like---combined their material, a point admitted in passing (p. 8). Further, Mansfield's hypothesis that a shortened version of the On Sevens was used by Galen 542 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY (employing Galen's titled ~ep~ vo~otov ci z6 }~LxQ6ze0ov) is weakened by Galen's habit of commonly putting together medical and philosophical theories in one work (e.g. Galen or Galen's writing here could be...